


Like starships that pass in the night

by queenofthenight



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, the last is porn i promise, whoops the first two chapters of this are just plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-06 21:59:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1874019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofthenight/pseuds/queenofthenight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Karkat is more than a little intimidated in the presence of the Alternian gold standard for beauty and warrior prowess. Meanwhile, Her Imperious Condescension channels her past life as the Meenah from Beforus and finds herself crushing super hard on Shouty McNubs. </p><p>Imagine the awe of being seven sweeps and finding yourself the apple of an immortal empress's eye (and vice versa, being half a fuck billion years old and hardcore and sexy as a motherfucker, yet for some reason going soft over a mutant pipsqueak). The empress can have anyone she wants. Her list of old lovers is a collection of concubines, trained courtesans, great figures of history, legendary war heroes, lords, ladies, Grand Highbloods, and none other than Troll Hellen of Troy herself. But now here's Karkat. Nub-horns, scrawny limbs, soft belly, insolent temper, prone to tears. And yet she is just like 'I have the weirdest boner'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> 1874, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn, part 3, section 4:
> 
> _Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,_  
>  Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;  
>  So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,  
>  Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence. 

Of all the ships to hitch a ride on, Karkat reflected, the imperial flagship was probably _not_ the best one to choose.

Intellectually, he knows it was the right choice. Security is incredibly tight on all Alternian ships, so logically the largest would have both the most potential hiding places and decrease the risk of somebody realising you weren’t actually supposed to be there. The downside to _that_ is that the largest ship also happened to be the flagship. Somewhere deep in his bloodpusher Karkat still had dreams that Her Imperious Condescension would make an exception just for him, that he’d become a threshecutioner and be the pride of the fleet. The sensible part of him was only staying as long as it took them to get out of the solar system and dock somewhere for fresh supplies. He could make a new life there, or so he hoped. There was always someone looking to exploit cheap, no-questions-asked labour. 

What he hadn’t counted on was the constant, low-level, chucklevoodoo-induced terror that made it impossible to sleep anywhere but in sopor. He vaguely remembers reading about it in schoolfeeding as a kid, that the subjugglators used it as a way to keep everyone alert and ready on duty, but he hadn’t actually ever considered what it might mean to him. What it means right _now_ is that he’s running for his life from a gang of pharmarauders after bungling an attempt to steal some sopor pills. 

He’d been briefed on the general layout of starships, they all had, but it’s one thing to see a floor plan and another to remember it when you’re running for your life. The lighting strips along the walls subtly change hue as he runs, indicating he’s moving towards the highblood quarters. He swallows down his fear and runs faster, hopes desperately that the pack following him, which consists mostly of greenbloods, won’t risk their own lives by entering. He doesn’t dare look back.

He runs, choosing corridors at random, until the lighting strips disappear altogether. It’s a dead end, a plain door, undecorated, but there’s no way back. The door is apparently attached to some kind of sensor because it opens to let him in without any kind of identification. He can’t go back, at any rate, and staying in the corridor would be unimaginably stupid, so he makes the only real decision there is to make and walks in like he owns the place.

The room before him is decorated sparsely but comfortably with an odd assortment of furniture and gadgets, mostly sea-themed and covered in a horrendous amount of glitter. Karkat automatically pulls a face at the terrible taste of seadwellers and tries not to think what would happen if he was caught here. It seems to be deserted for the moment, at least, though the greenies have probably reported the incident by now. Seadwellers like guns, don’t they? Eridan always did. Perhaps, he thinks, there’s something in all this glitzy trash that will help him. He eyes the nearest shelf dubiously.

“Water you doin’, scum?”

Karkat freezes. He knows that voice, that promise of glory and terror. A chill runs down his spine as he realises why his pursuers didn’t dare follow him any further.

“Yo, beach. Quit ignorin' me and turn around,” she commands.

Well, why the fuck not, Karkat figures. He’s as good as dead already, he might as well go down staring the sea-bitch in the face.

She towers above Karkat. He’d assumed, just a little, that her appearance on all the vidgrubs had been doctored to make her seem even more mighty and imposing. In the flesh she’s every bit as fierce as he’d hoped, this conqueror of worlds and creator of destiny who wears power and glory like a crown, and Karkat is glad to have seen her at least once before his inevitable demise. The look on her face is one of casual outrage, the one he’s seen millions of times before some insignificant bug is crushed beneath her pointed heel. Of all the ways to die, this isn’t the worst. He braces himself for impact.

A glimmer of recognition plays over her face before resolving into resignation.

“Aw, shell. It’s you again,” she says bitterly. “Come to haunt me some more? It’s shore been a whale.”

Karkat doesn’t know what to say. She knows him? How can she possibly know him?

Her whole posture has changed now, resigned rather than angry. “You’re so much younger this time,” she says softly, stepping slowly and deliberately towards him. “Do ya think this will change my mind? Ya failed, Signless. It’s over. Leave me be.”

She swishes a gigantic paw at him, as if to clear away the ghost of a memory she has clearly mistaken him for, and is utterly shocked as her cold flesh impacts with Karkat’s real, live body.

“You ain’t dead,” she says bluntly.

“No!” Karkat blurts out hysterically, “though given the circumstances I am extremely fucking surprised by that fact, and also I would like to state that I have absolutely no idea what is going on other than the fact that I appear to be simultaneously the luckiest and unluckiest troll in all fucking existence. Maybe I should have had the dignity to cull myself before we reached this supremely terrible meeting, but fuck you and fuck your hemospectrum, all I wanted was the chance to show you all what I could fucking do if you let me, but no, the universe would never be that kind to Karkat Vantas, fuck-up extraordinaire! In fact I’m pretty sure the galaxy would implode if something went right for me.”

She stares blankly at him for a second before her face resolves into a grin, all sharp teeth and blackened lip.

“I like ya, kid,” she says, and oh, he was not expecting that. “How old are ya? Cod, but your eyes ain’t even changed yet.”

“Nine,” he admits, and then stops, not sure what to say next. He has no doubt that she would change her mind in a second and cull him anyway.

She circles him, centuries of grace and poise wrapped up in one tightly-regulated movement. “Nine,” she says softly, dangerously. “So young. Ya sure as shell got a mouth on ya, though. Ain’t many as would _dare_ talk to me like ya just did. But ya ain’t like the rest of them anyway, are ya?”

She kneels and draws a candyfloss talon along his cheek. Karkat winces, not at the pain, but at the image of what he must look like as his blood wells up in the cut. He can imagine it well, the vivid, unthinkable red bright against his ashy skin. He doesn’t understand why he isn’t dead already.

“Such a glubbin’ shame,” she croons. “All the things ya coulda been if ya hadn’t been born like this. What a _pity_.”

Oh. That’s why. She wants something _before_ she offs him. He didn’t think she’d stoop to filth like him, but it’s her prerogative, right? She can do whatever the fuck she wants. Nobody’s going to try and _stop_ her, that’s for sure, especially not Karkat himself. He’s terrified out of his wits, but she’s still the empress, fantastic and glorious, and he’s nine, for crying out loud, his instincts are begging him to pail anything, _everything_ , just to get some relief. This should be a dream come true.

Her hand slides up under his shirt, exposing his belly to the cool air of her quarters. “Kiss me,” she says, “we can live forever,” and so he does, leaning awkwardly into her to reach her lips. A surge of energy rushes through him as their lips meet, and he stops breathing as the world around him stops and everything plunges into darkness…


	2. Two

Death, Karkat finds, is purple and sticky.

It’s also impossible to breathe in, and Karkat’s instincts cut in as he scrabbles for a foothold and launches himself upwards in search of air. He breaks the surface of the sopor with a splutter, blinking slime away as he realises that not only is he not dead, somebody stripped him down and put him to sleep. And wow, he didn’t think that anybody except Sollux used sopor dyes past the age of two, and he’s no Kanaya, but this is one of the tackiest rooms he’s ever been in. The ceiling has somehow been caked with glitter, as has the outside of the recuperacoon, and the walls are papered with posters of the mirthful messiahs. There’s a gigantic shell-shaped ablution trap over by a set of musclebeast pictures that would make Equius blush, and Karkat watches them out of the corner of his eye as he slicks himself off and makes his way over to the trap. His clothes and a towel have been placed along the side, so he can only assume that he’s supposed to clean himself and dress. 

The water is hot and clean, but Karkat doesn’t have time to revel in it. Well, maybe he does, but he’d much rather not be caught wet and naked if this isn’t what he’s supposed to be doing. He watches the purple fluid sluice down the drain and does his best not to think about what happened the night before. They kissed, and then what? He checks himself, but there aren’t any marks indicating something else happened. Is it possible that something horrible didn’t actually happen to him, for once? Maybe somehow he can still escape, hide away on the ship until they dock and disappear into the slums of some foreign world like he originally planned. All he has to do is get out of here and back into the depths of the ship without anybody seeing him.

The moment he picks up his clothes, he realises his plan is completely ruined. The cape is still his, unhemmed with ragged horn-holes, though somebody has taken the liberty of cleaning it. The shirt and pants that were hidden underneath the cape are most definitely not. Karkat has never owned pants of such fine woolbeast cloth, and if he _had_ he never would have presumed to run a stripe down the side in bright fuchsia ribbon. The shirt is crisp new linen, starched into shape with a high collar and bright mother-of-pearl buttons. He pulls it on hesitantly and carefully, but it fits him perfectly. He’s never worn a white shirt before. White is a colour for the wealthy, for those who never get their claws dirty or who want to tell the world exactly who they’ve been sharpening their claws on. He can’t help but feel vulnerable wearing it. He finds a shiny new pair of boots hidden on the far side of the trap and tugs them on too.

He’d been avoiding the mirror, but his curiosity gets the better of him. He looks good. Add a scythe and an insignia and he’d almost look like a high-ranking threshecutioner. He takes a moment to pretend that the bright purple is his own blood colour, that this finery is his right rather than a symbol of who now owns him. He wishes it were true.

The door suddenly slides open and her Imperious Condescension strolls through in all her glory. 

“Good, ya got up,” she says. “Lookin’ fancy, too. C’mon, I got a bunch a stuff to do and ain’t nobody else gonna do it for me.”

He follows her dumbly, jogging to keep up with her gigantic strides. The ship is nowhere near deserted, and Karkat knows he must look absolutely ridiculous, a tiny cast-off with nubby horns dressed up in finery and following the Empress about like a trained barkbeast. He realises belatedly that with her interruption he never got the chance to put his cape back on. 

“Meowbeast got ya tongue, kid?”

Oh, jegus. She’s talking to him. What the hell is he supposed to say? He decides honesty is the best route. He’s good at blunt.

“Er… I guess? I don’t know what you want me to say. What’s my role, here? Am I supposed to be quiet and meek? Because I can try, but unless you want me accidentally spewing trash to some blue-blooded bulge-sitter then you’re probably better off locking me in a room somewhere and pretending I don’t exist.”

She laughs, that odd chuckle from the night before, and three trolls nearby subtly edge for cover. 

“Nah, that’d be boring,” she says. “I brought ya along for fun! Now listen up, cuz I ain’t gonna say this twice. I got a couple admirals that need ta be embarrassed a bit before they get any ideas ahead a their station. There’s a bunch a shitty rules stopping me doing anything about it, but they’re the shitty rules keepin’ me in power, so I gotta get someone else ta do something for me. That’s where _you_ come in, kid. Eyes that colour, nobody knows what ya are. You’re unarmed, so they’re probably gonna assume you’re a powerful psionic. They’re gonna talk absolute beastshit, but I can’t call ‘em on it, so that’s your job. Tell ‘em when they’re being stupid. Be as creative as ya can. You’ll be putting yaself in the firing line, but let’s face it, without my protection, you’re dead anyway.”

She grins, exposing deadly teeth that have probably ripped out the throats of more people than you’ve ever met. It’s scary as hell and you can’t stop yourself grinning back.

“Ya ready to have some fun, fry?”

Did he just get offered a job? Holy shit, he did.

“Fuck yes. Let's do this.”


	3. Three

Karkat stands beside the throne, nubby teeth bared in a frightening smile.

It’s been a while now since the Condesce conscripted him as her agent, and Karkat has enjoyed every second since he realised she was a hundred percent serious about keeping him around. Nightly, powerful trolls are forced by him to do the Condesce’s will. He’s tiny and soft-bellied but his presence in a room fills it almost as much as the Condesce’s does. He has, against all odds, become the closest thing she has to an equal.

That makes him a little sad, actually. He’s seen the Condesce meet with thousands and thousands of trolls over miniscule squabbles and the fate of entire galaxies, and not one of those trolls sees her as a person. All the admirals, the captains, the nobodies that keep the tiny cogs of the empire greased, they all just see her as a figurehead, somebody to dole out power and punishment. No potential kismesis dares cross her and any moirail-to-be would be culled for even thinking of touching the empress, and if _she_ chooses someone they automatically become a way to target the Condesce and thus the second-biggest target in the empire. She’s incredibly alone.

Karkat doesn’t know how he’d deal with that for his limited lifespan, let alone the millenia she’s been alive. He ought to know better, but fuck him if he doesn’t pity her for it.

What do you _do_ when you decide you want to be in a relationship with the supreme ruler of your species, anyway? And, well, he has a pretty good chance, right? He knows there isn’t anyone else in her quadrants, and she’s actually _nice_ to him, which he really can’t say about anyone else. She never moved him out of her guest room and she’s foiled three assassination attempts personally. Besides, they’re not pale, they’re _really_ not. She encourages his ridiculous diatribes and bouts of temper, and he never tries to stop her wantonly killing trolls when she’s had a bad day. He wants to kiss her again.

He could ruin everything, he realises. But he could also make her happy. Is it worth the risk?

Yeah, it is.

“Advocate, ya wanna add anyfin?”

Ah, whoops, he was supposed to be paying more attention. He draws himself up to his full height and stares down from the dais at the cluster of trolls before them.

“Why? It’s obvious to the dullest wiggler that they’ve got themselves caught up in a revenge cycle, so either they sort their shit or they all end up dead. If that bulgesucker over there weren’t your head engineer this wouldn’t have even come near you, and since it did I’m guessing the aim of this chat, though I don’t fucking know why, is to actually keep these dipshits alive. So. You all either need to back the fuck off- yeah, I see you all fucking smirking at me like you know something I don’t, I know you’re not going to go with the only sensible option here, that would be too easy! - or we do it for you. Personally, I’d go for the engineer, there’s got to be someone else trained to do his job in case he dies on duty. Fuck, why not cull all of them? Nobody’s going to take vengeance against you, and so we stop this entire shitpanned clusterfuck. Seems reasonable to me.”

The Condesce doesn’t say anything, just regards them all as they process that. Being killed avenging your quadrants is honourable, and all of them would be happy to die that way. Being culled by the Condesce for being unable to manage your quadrants without help is downright dishonourable. They shift uncomfortably, trying to find a better option, and Karkat smirks as they realise he’s manoeuvred them into finding their own solution. He’s sneaky like that, now. 

The Condesce flicks her hand lazily. “You’re dismissed,” she drawls. “If I don’t hear somefin I like better in the next few hours, then I’ll take the Advocate’s advice.” They hesitate for a second to make sure that she’s finished before fleeing. Karkat stands at attention until they’ve scurried away, then relaxes against a table. Giving him his own chair in the throne room would have implied too much, but it’s nice to at least have something to lean on. The Condesce shifts in her chair so she’s slumped across it sideways, watching Karkat through half-lidded eyes. 

“Ya handled that well,” she says approvingly. “Cod, what did I do before ya came along?”

“I like you,” Karkat blurts out. “There’s never going to be a good time for this but you are really kind of pitiful and I want-”

She puts her hand against his mouth, shushing him. “Yeah. Me too,” she says. “C’mon, fry, this ain’t the place ta have this conversation. Let’s go back ta our rooms.”

She sweeps out of the room and he follows her at his now-customary jog. He blames the ridiculous food she keeps feeding him on the fact he’s still a little pudgy, because he’s getting at least twice as much exercise here as he was back on Alternia. None of the crew glances at him as he passes now. He belongs as much as any of them.  
The long trek back to their rooms seems to take forever, but all that’s running through Karkat’s head is an endless stream of ‘She said yes. She pities me too. She said yes’.  
The familiar blank door looms up in front of them (which Karkat survived through a mere chance of engineering; whichever chucklefuck coded the door decided to exclude all of the recognised blood colours but the Condesce’s rather than coding it to only allow her entry. Apparently the lasers that take out everybody else are a sight to see).  
She scoops him up the second they walk through the door and deposits him on a table, so they’re talking face to face.

“Did ya mean it?” she asks. “You’re flushed for me?”

“Yeah,” Karkat breathes, and she kisses him. There’s none of the power of their first kiss, but as she slides her fingers into Karkat’s hair to tilt his head into the kiss he finds he doesn’t mine. Her lips are surprisingly gentle, and this slower, more passionate kiss is exactly what he had dreamed for during all those hours of romcoms. This is exactly what he always wanted.

She breaks away and mouths at his neck, biting gently and then licking the bite. He shudders, and he can feel his bulge beginning to stir, a gentle heat moving through him. He’s touched himself before, yeah, but this is nothing like that. He wants to make /her/ happy. He’s thought about this over the past few months, and every troll is aware of the Condesce’s previous lovers- concubines, trained courtesans, great figures of history, legendary war heroes, lords, ladies, Grand Highbloods, and none other than Troll Hellen of Troy herself. He doesn’t think he can measure up, especially not the first time. She has more experience than he will ever have, but he’s thought about this, and he wants it. Clearly she wants it to, and how is he supposed to argue with that? She kisses his lips again and her hands slip between them to undo the gleaming buttons on his shirt. 

“It would be a pity ta ruin this,” she murmurs into his lips, and he agrees. It’s not the only shirt she’s gifted him with, but it was the first. This one is special.

It’s flung aside to safety, but Karkat pulls back. She watches him, concerned, wondering what’s gone wrong.

“I- not here.” he manages. “Somewhere more comfortable? With a bucket? I- I don’t want to make a mess.”

“Shore,” she tells him, and grabs his hand. She pulls him further into the rooms, pas her own recuperacoon into a smaller chamber with a pailing platform and an unmarked bucket in a corner. It almost doesn’t seem _real_ to Karkat.  
The Condesce presses a button on the wall and her bodysuit disappears with the characteristic zap of the wardrobifier, replaced with a pair of fuchsia underpants. Karkat gapes at her for a second, then takes the initiative and takes off his shoes, then his pants, before climbing onto the alarmingly large platform and beckoning her over.

Her rumblespheres are loose, no fabric binding them anymore, and Karkat runs a hand up her side and over one. It’s heavier and softer than he imagined, and cooler, too. He must feel blazing hot to her. He leans forward to bite her neck, harder than she did to compensate for his nubby teeth. She moans slightly, feedback to let him know he’s doing okay, and he does it again, this time running his thumb over her nipple then pinching it like he’d read in his romance novels. She responds by grabbing his face with both hands and mashing her lips to his, a more desperate kiss than the ones they shared earlier. Karkat keeps massaging and pinching her rumblespheres, moving to the other so he doesn’t overdo it. She wiggles against him, and when they break apart Karkat can see the outline of her bulge wriggling against the thin fabric of her underwear. His own bulge reacts, sliding out of its sheath.

She leans forward and slides a hand down to cup his bulge, squeezing it to punctuate her words. “I want ya inside me,” she whispers into his ear, and he knows she can feel his bulge shifting more in reaction to that. “Oh, yes, _you_ want it too.”

They’re too tangled up to pull his pants off properly, so Karkat slices through them with a claw and rips them from his body, freeing his bulge. The tip is curling around her little finger, and she shifts her hand slightly and squeezes again, pushing him back against the platform with her other hand. She spreads his legs and kneels between them, stroking him gently as she slides a finger into his nook.

Karkat moans. He can’t help himself. He feels himself clench around her single finger and wow, even /that/ is a lot, how is he going to fit an entire bulge? What if this all goes wrong because-

“Relax,” the Condesce says, and somehow just that is immense comfort to Karkat. She’s done this before, she knows what’s going on, and she isn’t freaking out that he’s wrong. “This shouldn’t hurt. Let me know if it does.”

She wriggles her finger around inside him, which feels incredibly strange to Karkat, punctuating it with strokes of his bulge. /That/ feels nice, so he focuses on that, lying back and enjoying the haze of pleasure she’s bringing him. He protests a little as she pulls her finger out, but she slides it back in with a second and he finds it isn’t nearly as tight this time.

“You’re doin' so good,” she murmurs to him. “So good. You’ll be good for me, won’t ya?”

‘Yes’, Karkat wants to say, ‘yes, I’ll do anything for you, whatever you want, whatever makes you happy’, but she chooses that moment to lean forward and lick a broad stripe up the underside of his bulge and his thinkpan overloads just a little, blanking out in a moment of pure pleasure. 

His eyes refocus as she leans down over him, pressing a heavy kiss against his neck. Her bulge is slick against his stomach. He braces, expecting her to push into him, but instead she takes his bulge and guides it into her own nook, relaxing and clenching against him in waves. It’s all Karkat can take. He lets out a groan as he comes, falling back against the bed as pleasure spasms through him. She keeps shifting around him as his orgasm subsides, pleasure fading into contentment as she shifts against him. This is wonderful, Karkat thinks. Why don’t people just do this all the time?

His eyes fly open in horror as he realises that he was the only one to climax. He finds the Condesce smirking down at him in amusement.

“Whale, I’m glad one a us had a good time,” she teases.

Karkat blushes a bright, horrific red. “I, er-,” he begins.

“Relax, kid. Ya can get me off next time, how does that sound?”

“Next time? Next time sounds pretty fucking fantastic, actually.”

“Ha! Yeah, I though ya might like that.” She pauses, then brushes his hair away from his eyes before dropping a kiss on his forehead. “Flushed for you. Now, if ya don’t mind, holding this in is gettin' a little uncomfortable.”

Karkat goes bright red again as she slides off him and walks gingerly towards the bucket, flashing a lascivious wink in the process. 

“Flushed for you,” he calls after her. “Red as red, you pitiful lunatic.”

Because he is, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
